Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday April 11, 2013 @08:27AM
from the but-starbucks-is-nervous dept.

retroworks writes "I ignored the warning posted here on Slashdot on March 23. Surely someone was setting up some April Fools day hoax. But the Governor has now signed the bill. Whose cold dead hands will they pry the computer mice out of?" Note: while this might not change your opinion of the Florida law or other things it might lead to, it is aimed specifically at the kind of "Internet cafe" where the "Internet" part is essentially just a portal to online gambling, rather than at conventional Internet cafes.

This story has a long history. Basically these places were operating with a variety of names (cafes, arcades, sweepstakes, probably others) for many years. They operated based on loopholes in Florida law and their sole purpose was for gambling. A very large one got shut down because they crossed the line from simply unethical to illegal. They were operating under the premise they were a veterans benefit organization and not actually giving veterans and significant amounts of money. The lieutenant governor was involved with the company somehow so the story exploded. Rick Scott is already wildly unpopular and the Florida Republican party is on the path to possibly losing 2014 so the hammer came down to make a point that the legislature can still get things done.

It's pretty telling that the company that was shut down was run mostly by lawyers. They operated along the cracks and loopholes of Florida laws. These places are usually in poor and retired neighborhoods so I'm not that sad to see them go away. Maybe if we can do something about the "WE BUY GOLD" and check cashing places we can start to clean up these communities.

Here is the actual bill as signed as a PDF: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2013/0155/BillText/er/PDF [flsenate.gov]
Florida (and governing bodies in general) can easily pass bills with unintended consequences as pointed about by others' comments, so read the bill yourself to see what actually took place. The actual bill is called "CS/HB 155: Prohibition of Electronic Gambling Devices".